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The Mentalist

New jobs are exhausting! The amount of information and complexity of issues and getting to know the people and trying to get a feel for the place with its (unspoken) rules can be somewhat overwhelming at times. But I can also safely say it’s been good, the people have been very nice to me, they have waited to start certain projects until I’d be around and I feel welcome. A new manager started the same day I did, had a talk with her yesterday, and she feels worlds removed from being a micro-manager, which is excellent news. Two or three clients (internal colleagues) who were frustrated because no one got back to them on certain issues (due to someone else leaving and there being no back up) were made happy by me because I was either able to solve something for them or at least able to listen to them, promising to look into the problem. I worked on Wednesday because they wanted me along for a work field trip, so I changed my day off to today without any micro-manager giving me shit about it. Heck, even the view from the 10th floor where I work is good! This is the view from the elevator hallway…

Yes, first full week at my new job has been exhausting but good, which makes me smile!

But there were more smiles. Richard had a lovely little Twitter exchange promoting his The Lodge movie…

… which means that for 3 days now this has been singing around in my head…

I’ve never been a big Grease fan (I know, sacrilege!) but I do like this song, not bad having that in my head and making me smile. 🙂

Another smile this week is the new second-hand car we bought and picked up on Wednesday, late in the afternoon. We had a guzzler for a car that could pull our caravan and, strictly speaking, we didn’t need it anymore, as we don’t have the caravan anymore. So, to make things a little cheaper for us (gas, taxes and insurance) and to be a little more environmentally friendly, we bought a hybrid Toyota Auris. My daughter had been with us when we bought the car 10 days ago but she was in Berlin with school for the week, so it was only our son who was with us when we picked it up.

The car has a ‘panorama roof’ (just glass, you can’t open it, but wonderful for gazing at the sky and daydreaming) which my son fell in love with. Yeah, the rain couldn’t take the smiles away.

Of course, the big smiley news is the news of Baby Sussex being born. Yes, Harry and Meghan have a son named Archie, who was born earlier this week. Pictures of the happy couple with baby were shared, which is worth a smile of its own…

WINDSOR, ENGLAND – MAY 08: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, pose with their newborn son during a photocall in St George’s Hall at Windsor Castle on May 8, 2019 in Windsor, England. The Duchess of Sussex gave birth at 05:26 on Monday 06 May, 2019. (Photo by Dominic Lipinski – WPA Pool/Getty Images)

… and Harry was in The Netherlands yesterday for the Invictus Games which are apparently coming to The Hague next year. Het got a little onesie from Prinses Margriet (former queen’s sister, our king’s aunt)…

However, the best part was the jacket he was wearing during a short bike ride, which also said “I am daddy”…

Yeah, big time smiles for that one as well!

Early this morning my daughter came home from Berlin (they drove through the night)…

She’s been exahusted, napped through most of the day, and she is out now with Mr Esther, giving the new car a little exercise. 🙂

And finally, Simon Baker. After The Mentalist ended I lost touch a bit with what he’s up to and while he does have Instagram, he doesn’t post that much on it. But he did post this today. My first thought was: “oh my, he’s looking so good”! And that smile, he has one of the best smiles I have ever seen on anyone. Then I looked closer and see that his Mentalist co-star and the person he ends up marrying on the show, Robin Tunney, has reacted to his post…

… and then a short little exchange follows in the comments…

Now, wouldn’t it be lovely if these two meet up and take cute pictures together? A sort of happily ever after, after The Mentalist? Ah, the memories this brings back!

I updated my fan video corner on this site yesterday evening, adding a page for the TV series Suits. I have made several videos for that show, the last one was in November, but I suspect that after series 7B airs (starting March 28th!), I will be making some more Suits videos. I didn’t have a Suits page yet but now that omission has been corrected.

I have a YouTube channel, which is where I post most of my videos and I have posted videos there from the end of 2010 onwards. While I do post, I very rarely check any stats and I’m not very active there, community-wise. After I post a new video, I sometimes throw a quick peek at a few basic stats from the last few videos I posted but tend to quickly move on. I don’t aim to gather a huge following, I’m just sharing what I make and should others like it, then that’s the extra bonus.

Anyway, while updating my fan video corner here, I thought I’d check out my YouTube stats in a little more depth for a change. What I see is that I have garnered 957.875 views over the past 7,5 years! I don’t know if that’s really a lot in the grand scheme of things but it sounds like a lot to me! I am also surprised that I have 607 subscribers! They must come from varying fandoms as I have made videos for several different shows, but that number surprises me. I was also able to see what my most viewed videos were and the results also surprised me…

My number 1 most viewed video is a Suits video called ‘Crazy’ which I posted last November. I am gobsmacked that a video I posted only 4 months ago should already be at the top of the list! As I type this, the video has had 141.058 views and 296 likes (with 20 dislikes)…

I wonder what makes this Suits video so very popular! My first Suits fan video was made up of gifs, so not that great and I get why that one isn’t so popular. Another Suits video I made (“Bomb”) is blocked in USA and Canada (but also available on Vimeo), so I get why that doesn’t have that many views either. I do wonder why the one I made after ‘Crazy’ (called ‘Demons’) is stuck at 746 views, though, which is about 1000 views less than even that gif video. Is it really that much worse? Or was the popular one shared on some very popular Suits platform and is that why it is so extremely well viewed? In any case, this is interesting!

The number 2 most viewed video is one I did of a little Pierce Brosnan romcom called Laws of Attraction. Not the best of romcoms but I liked it and as there were very few fan videos of this movie out there, I decided to make one. It was posted in September 2012 (so took 5,5 years to garner the views it got) and has 132.506 views with 185 likes (and 18 dislikes). I guess it must be the big name (Pierce Brosnan), but it is the only video I also get spam notifications on. So, I’m thinking, maybe bots are responsible for some of those views?

I have a Pierce Brosnan videos page for the 4 vids I made starring him, should you care to see more. Two more Brosnan videos are in my top 10 most viewed list as well: at number 5 a Remington Steele ‘Kiss me’ video and at number 7 the ‘Love is all you need’ video.

My 3rd most viewed video is a bit of a dramatic Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries one. That one (posted in April 2016, so almost 2 years ago) has 115.914 views and the most likes of any other video on my channel: 666 likes (with only 10 dislikes)! So, number 3 in views but number 1 in most liked. 🙂

More Miss Fisher videos here. There are two more Miss Fisher videos in my top 10 most viewed list: at number 4 is ‘Jack’s Desk’ and at number 9 is ‘They can’t take that away from me’.

I also have A Place To Call Home videos, the most popular one of that show is the ‘At Last’ one I made at the end of season 4 a year ago, it’s the 6th most viewed video on my channel.

And ‘Time in a Bottle’ that I also made for that show is number 8 in the top ten.

I made a few Call the Midwife videos three years ago, some of them are also relatively popular. The most popular one for that show is ‘I Choose You’ (number 10 of my most viewed videos), which highlights the choice Sister Bernadette has to make…

Outside of the top 10 videos, I also want to highlight a The Mentalist video. I always kind of assumed my old The Mentalist ‘That man’ video would remain my most popular video but that one is down to number 19 on the list now! Goes to show how long it’s been since I’ve actually really looked at stats. That video, one of my earliest fan videos (made in 2011!) and a little less polished looking, still remains one of my own faves. It is also still the most popular video of the The Mentalist ones I made…

And last but not least: I made the most videos for Silent Witness when the character of Dr. Harry Cunningham was still around. The show was never the same again after he left and after they killed off Dr. Leo Dalton a year later, I stopped watching altogether. My most viewed Silent Witness video (made in 2013, number 15 most viewed) got blocked on YouTube a year ago, so I have put it up on Vimeo. It dealt with the loss of Harry… Even after all these years (4, I think) I still hope that Dr. Nikki Alexander (she still does Silent Witness) will ride off into the sunset with Harry after all…

I should make a Richard Armitage fan video some time… but there are so many good ones already out there, I don’t feel like there’s much I can add. And I guess I should do this YouTube video analysis again some time in the future and see how things stand then. It’s been fun. 🙂

As those of you blogging on WordPress may know, you can see what search terms were used by people who have found your site. Most terms are not recorded due to privacy issues, but some searches do make it ‘on record’. The latest one I saw on my stats list today is “audrey hepburnshowing middle finger” in Russian (I had to google-translate it)! Oh, that made me laugh!

Many of the search terms used are general ones about Richard Armitage or Colin Firth or Simon Baker and The Mentalist but some search terms are just downright intriguing, interesting or funny! I find myself reacting to some of these searches as if they were frequently asked questions posed to me. It’s a nice little game to play.

So, here goes, the “FAQ’s” that lead to my blog! Well, not really… sorta… (most of these questions are only mentioned once on my list). 🙂

audrey hepburn showing middle finger – Hahaha! Now that I’d like to see… When googling it I find this manipulated photo/gif, apparently it’s a thing!

images eddie redmayne socks – What is special about Eddie Redmayne’s socks? I can’t seem to figure it out but I’d love to know. So, if anyone can elaborate, please feel free to do so. Maybe his socks are very colourful, just like Richard Armitage’s seem to be?

richard armitage beautiful man – Well, yeah, can’t argue against that! If you read this blog, you will know that that is a fact of life for me.

james cromwell in a fairy film – Apparently when you type that into google, my site is the first one to come up! I guess the search must have been for the movie Babe. Yeah, I blogged about that once. Lovely film!

is alistair appleton married? – I confess that I don’t know. He occasionally presents Escape to the Country on the BBC, he’s a Buddhist, he’s a psychotherapist and gives workshops, it says on wikipedia that he’s ‘openly gay’, he has his own site and blog! Every time I look at him I am filled with warm feelings. It’s something in his eyes and a kindness in his face.

richard spandex – Ah, yes! Looks like that could become a thing maybe? Sadly it looks like we will never get to see Richard Armitage in spandex now that he won’t be in the Mid Life Crisis movie anymore (not that spandex was guaranteed in that movie by any means). The closest thing to an image of Richard in spandex (that I know of) is the picture of him in that dragon suit for Hannibal.

Of course, this question may have nothing to do with Armitage at all but could be about any Richard out there… This is what my ‘richard spandex’ search came up with in the first few images displayed (be warned when clicking on them, there’s at least one quite graphic image amongst these 😉 ):

richard armitage bare chest AND richard armitage crucible naked – He wasn’t actually naked in The Crucible but yes, he definitely was bare chested in it for a little bit! Wish I had been sitting on the front row in the theatre for that, but luckily it can all be viewed beautifully again and again on Digital Theatre.

andy serkis shirtless – I see a search theme emerging here… I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Andy Serkis shirtless! I have seen him in spandex, or whatever that tight stuff is that he has to wear for his CGI work.

daughter is in jail – Well, she’s only 12. I suppose juvenile detention could be an option but no, I have not seen real criminal tendencies in my daughter yet.

how do you say, “happy belated birthday”, in czech? – Even though I have been to the Czech Republic (and the next visit is coming right up, this time to the East right near Poland), I have not learned to speak Czech yet. Google Translate says that “belated happy birthday” translates as”opožděné přání k narozeninám“. Not at all sure how you pronounce that and of course I can not vouch for the correctness of the translation.

is the book of esther a comedy – No, can’t say that it is. Not this one and not the Bible one either. Although maybe some parts could be funny-ish.

was the book of esther about love – This Book of Esther blog is about things that I love and care about, so in that sense, yes. The Book of Esther in the Bible (incidentally, I was named after that Esther) is about love too. The Persian king loves Esther, Esther loves her people and saves them from persecution. I can’t quite remember whether Esther actually falls in love with King Ahasverus herself, but yeah, lots of things are done in the name of love in that Bible book.

esther rose thomas lovely deaf signer – For a moment I thought it said ‘singer’ but it says ‘signer’. I’ve never heard of her, but she sounds and looks lovely!

jisbon fun photo – Which one? I hope you found it! (For those not in the know: Jisbon is the ‘shipper’ name for Patrick Jane and Theresa Lisbon from The Mentalist). I get quite a lot of searches about The Mentalist, Simon Baker and about his wife Rebecca Rigg. They truly are a gorgeous couple worth searching for.

call the midwife mark strong – Nope, Mark Strong was never in Call the Midwife. I do get quite a lot of Mark Strong searches, but alas, I haven’t blogged about him that much. I do like him, though!

marta dusseldorp nose – Ah, the lead actress in A Place to Call Home! Yes, her nose does have quite a distinctive shape (click on images to enlarge). I love distinctive noses. In fact, her co-star Brett Climo has a distinctive one as well! Just like some other people I know.

chris armitage brother of richard armitage – This is the most used search term in my list, which surprises me because I don’t think I have ever blogged about Richard’s family! I know nothing about them except for their names (except for Richard’s sister-in-law’s name) and that they come from Leicester.

I have loved stories in movies and stories in certain TV series for ages and ages. And I’ve always been a fangirl of some sort! I’ll stick to my TV series fangirling here (although, when I started ‘fangirling’ I don’t think it had that name yet!).

The first TV series I loved as a young girl was Little House on the Prairie. I loved the series, I loved the books, I wanted to be Laura Ingalls, wanted long brown hair like her and the worst possible insult was being compared to Nellie Oleson (which sometimes happened because I was blond like her)! I found out much later that as much as Laura and Nellie hated each other on-screen the actresses portraying them (Melissa Gilbert and Alison Arngrim) became good friends in real life.

Laura, Nellie & Mary

Apparently good friends in real life!

I collected pictures from magazines, read everything I could about Laura – basically did the best fangirling I could do before the internet.

My first own fan creation is a fan fiction I wrote (not typed, but actually wrote in a paper notebook!) at the age of 19 or 20. I still have it somewhere, never finished it though. I wrote it for an Australian TV series called The Flying Doctors that I was absolutely addicted to at the time. My favourites on the show were Dr Geoff and nurse Kate and I loved watching their relationship slowly unfold.

The fiction I wrote, however, was not about them but about Dr. David Ratcliffe, a young new doctor who came on later in the show.

I wrote a story about him falling in love with an original female character (travelling through the Australian outback but setting roots for a while in the town of Coopers Crossing where the doctors were based), as the writers didn’t seem to be able to give David a proper love interest on the show. I never realised I was writing what is now called ‘fan fiction’ and I imagined I was the only one in the world doing that. Thanks to the internet I now know many many others have the urge to write fan fiction as well!

The next fan fiction I wrote was some 16 years later! I had seen the North and South TV mini series, I had fallen in love with Richard Armitage and I just needed to continue the story! So I wrote about Margaret returning with John to Milton, making peace with Mrs Thornton and about Henry trying to break them up again but not succeeding… Here’s the title page I made for that fic:

Reading it again, it’s alright but not great and rather sappy with quite some mistakes in it too, so I don’t think I want to own up to it here… It was the first fan creation I shared on the internet, though! And it’s still around if you know where to look. 😉

North & South also awakened my interest in fan videos. I watched countless fan vids online that were being made at the time. I had no clue how to make them myself, though. But finally one day, I tried one. Not for North & South however, as there were already so many good ones for N&S out there; I made my first fan video for another TV series.

The TV series was called Silent Witness and again, there was a couple at the heart of the show – the developing relationship between pathologists Dr. Nikki Alexander and Dr. Harry Cunningham. In fact, my interest in these two had been awakened by a fan video I had accidentally come across and had really enjoyed! So, I started watching Silent Witness and along the way made screen caps for myself. I one day decided to set these screen caps to music in a PowerPoint presentation. Only after I had done that did I discover I actually had video making software on my laptop and I started experimenting with it. That old Windows Moviemaker software has more possibilities than the current newer version, so every time I got a new laptop I installed the old Moviemaker on it. To this day that’s what I use to make videos. It’s not very advanced software but it’s free. Anyway – I remade that first Powerpoint video in Moviemaker, set up a YouTube channel and posted it. Here is that first crude effort, in case you’re interested (I made vids under the pseudonym of ‘Hannah’):

Not long after that I ‘graduated’ to making videos with actual real video clips (that I had painstakingly sourced myself)! Figured it all out on my own and was quite proud. Those vids aren’t great, but hey, it’s a learning process! Alas, Harry & Nikki never actually got together on the show, so in my frustration I also wrote fan fiction about them where they of course do get together! Also still around on the internet if you know where to look. 🙂

Sometime later I discovered The Mentalist and became completely enamoured with that show! Four years ago I made my first Mentalist video to the song That man. To this day that remains one of my absolute fave vids that I made. The image sizing isn’t ideal, which at that point I hadn’t quite figured out yet, but I still love the pacing and rhythm in this video and how the lyrics suited the images (all of them from season 3) that I had chosen. To this day it is also the most popular video on my channel.

I have made videos to some other TV shows as well. There are a few The Lizzie Bennet Diaries vids (technically not a TV show, but a YouTube vlog series), I even made two Remington Steele ones, I made a few for Call the Midwife and lately I have been vidding like crazy for two new (to me) Australian TV series that I have absolutely fallen in love with! What’s extra fun is that both these series connect back to The Flying Doctors, the object of my first fan creation!

First off, A Place to Call Home which stars Brett Climo in the lead male role. Climo also played David Ratcliffe, the doctor I wrote my first fan fic about! In A Place to Call Home he is even briefly reunited with Andrew McFarlane who played his colleague Dr. Tom Callaghan on Flying Doctors and on A Place to Call Home McFarlane plays the small role of a far less heroic psychiatric doctor in season 2…

Anyway, I digress. I have made a few fan videos for A Place to Call Home that I already blogged shortly about here, here and here.

And now I am also obsessed with Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and there are Flying Doctors connections in that too! Phryne Fisher’s best friend Doctor Mac is played by Tammy Macintosh who also briefly played nurse Annie on Flying Doctors.

And Phryne’s ex-lover Rene is played by Peter O’Brien who was pilot Sam on Flying Doctors.

And even my fave doctor Geoffrey Standish (Robert Grubb) had a small guest role on Miss Fisher (series 1 episode 4 as owner of a business whose workers are on strike).

But this post isn’t about Flying Doctors connections, it’s about doing something with your favourite TV series. So, adding to the many favourite TV series I’ve known, I am right now into making Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries videos. I already posted about two video’s I had made here and here but in the meantime I have made 4 more videos… Yeah, I know, it just needs to stop… Anyway, here they are:

“Ain’t she sweet”:

“A heart that runs as deep as the Pacific ocean” (a bit of an angsty video):

“A coffee, a sandwich and you” (as Jack loves his food so much):

“That’s what friends are for”(highlighting the tactile side of the Phryne & Jack relationship):

There are more TV series I really enjoy (like right now Blindspot) but not all series make me actually want to be creative. For Blindspot for instance, I would have no idea where to start or what to do. I’m not sure why the series I have mentioned above have made me do something creative. Maybe it’s a sense of needing to add something, the need to resolve something that is unresolved or the need to relive a certain aspect of certain characters’ stories. Yes, reliving certain aspects has a lot to do with it, now that I think of it… in my videos I am always highlighting a certain aspect of a relationship I love, telling that part of the characters’ stories. But sourcing clips takes up a lot of time, so I only do it for those TV shows where I feel I have something to add to what’s already out there.

As for fan fiction – that’s about resolving unresolved issues. In addition to fics already mentioned, I’ve written a Mentalist short one shot and I even wrote a short Ally McBeal one because I always felt she should have ended up with Larry (and I pretended the last season never happened). I sort of start writing the fan fiction in my head in bed before I fall asleep at night. It relaxes me and takes my mind off any worries I might have, works better than any sleeping drugs out there. Sometimes the nighttime stories in my mind need to be written down and they turn into fan fiction. They never feel quite good enough, though. I am braver about posting fan videos than owning up to my fan fiction attempts…

So yeah, I have done quite a lot with TV series… perfectly fitting to share all of this for the “Mach’ was!” challenge, I figured! 🙂